This has always bothered me. Google buys a huge hardware company called Motorola, and people expect new Google phones to appear within a few weeks or months. Of course, anybody with more than two brain cells to rub together realises buying and integrating such a huge company isn't something you just do in a few weeks or months. Luckily, The Verge reports Google has just stated the obvious.

I agree with your point that Google is just finding the "best" pre-production unit that OEMs are showing around and then works to rebrand it and optimize the latest OS release for it, but it's quite humorous that you refer to non-Google Android as non-AOSP.

All non-Google Android devices are AOSP. Amazon Fire, the horrible skins, locked/unlocked, anything you can think of is still AOSP-based code. That is the point of the AOSP: it is the open source code to be used by all including mods.

And of course, you can't refer to this class of Android devices as non-OHA devices because, even then -- with Google Apps and tight oversight from Google, OEMs are still allowed tremendous leeway, carriers are still allowed to lock and add bloatware...

What you are referring to is strictly unlocked, Google Android with zero skins or bloatware, provided stock as Google wants it -- i.e, the Nexus line of branded Android devices.

The chances are strong that this class will always specifically be the "Nexus" brand (and even then, sometimes the carriers will get some modifications and/or locking). I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Google/Moto continues to provide non-Nexus devices as Moto's primary clients remain the U.S. carriers.